Table Tennis: New stars emerge at NZ junior open

A couple of potential new stars emerged from the New Zealand table tennis junior open, which doubled as ITTF global junior circuit event, in Auckland this weekend.

In an exciting junior men's final Clarence Chew from Singapore had to pull out all stops to defeat his Thai opponent Max Poungsri as the final went the full distance of seven games, with the Thai player retrieving seemingly impossible shots to keep the rallies going.

Chew is ranked inside the world's top 50 juniors and has the potential to become a good professional in one of the hotbeds of the sport in Asia.

The 16-year-old didn't drop a match in either the teams or individual event and now looks a good chance of making the world junior men's circuit final event later in the year.

The best of the Kiwi junior men were Roger Rao and Kevin Wu who both made the singles semis, losing to Chew and Poungsri respectively.

The junior women's final was a easy victory for Singapore's Isabelle Siyun Li, who dominated her final with a straight game victory over Yee Lok Lam from Hong Kong. Together they combined to win the junior women's doubles in straight games over Australia's Eliza Forster and Samantha Ong of Malaysia.

A Kiwi player won the cadet singles final as Sophia Dong, 14, from Auckland easily despatched New Caledonia's Lea Lai Van in straight games.

Dong also teamed with another Aucklander Ruofei Rao to win the cadet girls doubles over a Hong Kong and Malaysian pair in straight games.

The New Zealand team of Daniel Lowe and Tom Nguyen made the junior men's doubles final but were defeated in four games by the Australian combination of Dillon Cathcart and Nathan Van Der Heiden.